STM calibration
STM calibration
During the early phase of STM (before the 1986 Nobel Prize award) calibration
of the piezo was essential. This means that one needs to know the changes
in the x, y, and z position of the tip caused by adjustments to the piezo
on which the tip is mounted. Just how this was done still needs to be investigated
(comments welcome!). Once the STM was established this problem vanished.
For example, commercial STMs supplied by Digital Instruments in 1989 simply
used the STM measurements of atomic distance in a known crystal as the
benchmark. This is a sign of robustness and of widespread trust in the
STM by the year 1989. The same calibrative scheme would not have worked
half a dozen years earlier because many scientists did not then trust S\TM
measurements; they thought that they were effects of the instrument itself,
or indeed fraudulent.
(Sources: Elings & Gurley (Digital Instruments Inc.), "STM in Research
and Development", Research & Development, February 1989, 126-129)
This page was written and last updated on 16-Feb-2001 by Arne
Hessenbruch.
